


With A Little Help From My Friends

by kaixo (ballpoint)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Made Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-09 15:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12891318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo
Summary: Toby tries to save Christian from a world of hurt, but he can only offer comfort in the end.





	With A Little Help From My Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ItsADrizzit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsADrizzit/gifts).



It’s not that Toby wanted to pry - it really wasn’t any of his business- not at all. 

Didn’t say anything more than a pointed comment to Christian back then, because he’d had a -a feeling about Christian and Vincent. Didn’t want to be the nag in their little group, and as such, kept the warning short and to the point _Don’t get involved_.

Watched from the sidelines as he did anyway. 

Oh, not that Christian admitted it. 

Nor did he deny it. 

“We’--” he’d started once, the tops of his cheeks flushing as he lowered his gaze to the puzzle he was piecing together on the table between them, by the window. This time at Mousa’s house, both of them on either side of the small card table. Christian slotting a loose puzzle piece into place while Toby looked on. The puzzle of the moment _Brandenburger Tor_ , the Berlin landmark now complete with the _Quadriga_ of Victoria, the goddess of victory on top. “We get on,” he finished. 

And _how_ .

The electricity that _thrummed_ between Christian and Vincent - when their eyes snagged and met across a crowded room- could have powered the floodlights at White Hart Lane for their entire European campaign that season. 

On the field and in others’ company, their hugs and touches casual, and fleeting in the way that team sports demanded. A pat on the back for a job well done, hands clasping as you dragged your teammate or opponent to their feet. 

They still tackled each other with the intensity as Pochettino demanded from his five asides during training. Christian giving no quarter and demanding none; as he skinned a ball off Vincent, finding Sonny in the nail file’s width of a space with a gorgeous backheel which would have compelled sportscasters to throw their arms up and just shout his name if it had been on TV, leaving Vincent without ankles and on his arse. 

On the field, they kept it professional, with the sort of ruthlessness Pochettino came to expect, handing over their bodies and minds to the stretch of time that practice needed. As soon as the whistle blew, ending the sessions, they found each other. From the initial searching glances, to the casual arm thrown around each other’s shoulders. The conversation between them in Dutch pretty banal, but you’d have thought it was the world’s most romantic screenplay as their eyes never left each other’s, their faces aglow.

Toby kept his own counsel. 

From Christian, anyway. 

Mousa and Jan, however, knew what he thought, by virtue of a grumpy edict at the dining table. 

“It will end in tears.” 

“Leave them to it,” Jan advised when they did their weekly dinners. 

Today breaking bread at Toby’s house, having dinner around the small, circular table in the kitchen, their knees and elbows bumping into each other. Their meal of fish and salad, with glass bottles of sparkling water close to hand.

Depending on the schedule regarding their fixtures, they tried to have dinner together once a week. Toby and Jan slotted together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Mousa and Jan fitted together too, in a different way; like an omelette, meshed into each others’ structures and no way of pulling apart. Old and intimate friends to the point where they’d look at each other and burst out laughing over an unsaid joke. 

Both of their natures calm and accepting to Toby’s intense, restless own, and surprisingly blind as bats as to what was going on in front of them. 

“For all we know, you’re reading a lot into it, into...” Jan waved his fork around vaguely, “what they are. They are of a similar age, with a similar outlook.”

“Janssen is going to leave, whether he wants to or not,” Toby groused, elbows folded across his chest as he leaned back in his chair, his fish and quinoa with vegetable salad forgotten. “Christian is -”

“Mature. Settled. Balanced,” Mousa interrupted. “Also, an adult. He’s been on his own since seventeen like the rest of us, and he’s entitled to make his own mistakes, eh? People come and go and -”

“It’s none of our business, eh? The most we can do is be here for the fallout,” Jan chimed in.

“Right,” Mousa patted Jan’s shoulder in a show of agreement, giving Toby a smile filled with dimples and empathy. “Besides, you know what Christian is like. He’s quite sensible. He isn’t one to be swept away by these things.”

***

Crowded against the door, his laugh swallowed by Vincent’s kisses, his hands _everywhere_ ; along his back, skimming along from waist to shoulder, muscles shifting and contracting under his touch. Fingers in the rough silk of his hair, the rest of the world grey, the only spot of colour in the universe nothing but the sunspots between them. The air thin and close, Christian’s heart beating in double time, as if sprinting without recovery. Desperate to be closer- to sink into skin - he angled his head, their kiss deeper and more feral.

Vincent tasting of the mash of green and sweetness of the smoothie he’d nicked from the kitchens at training, and when Vincent tore his mouth away from Christian’s to catch his breath, he wanted to scream but couldn’t, hiccoughing an audible swallow at the scrape of Vincent’s teeth along the column of his throat. 

“ _Christiaan_ ,” Vincent’s voice deep to the point of a mumble, the only tether to sanity as everything whirled around them; this lust, this _ache_ for each other. It flattened everything in its path, including both mind and body, his legs giving way, him half falling, half sliding to the floor. His shoulder blades blunted with pain as he hit the hard wooden floor, but before his body registered that sensation, his skin goosebumped with the jolt of the pleasure of Vincent’s hands and mouth on him.

***

“We were supposed to be looking at video,” Vincent said, as their breaths came back. He shifted the weight of his body to his elbow, his face just hovering above Christian’s. Christian himself not wanting to move a centimetre, his body having the structural integrity of boiled _noedles_. He had enough strength to reach out and rest his hand against Vincent’s cheek, the dense scruff scratching his palm.

“I know.”

“I guess we can now.” But Vincent didn’t move away, his hand covering Christian’s own, as he turned and pressed a kiss into his palm. 

“I don’t want to.”

“Christian,” although Vincent’s voice was gentle, there was a hint of censure there, enough for Christian to raise an eyebrow in question. “I’d hate for my form to be catching,” he finished in a note of self mockery. But before Christian could say a word, Vincent closed the distance between them, tucking his head into the hinge between Christian’s neck and shoulder, his breathing hot and welcome against his pulse.

***

Newcastle, five. Tottenham, one.

Looking at the video on Vincent’s laptop as they curled up together in bed in Vincent’s flat, pillows propping their heads up- the result didn’t feel any less surreal - and Christian had played in the game. Somehow they got the laptop to balance on their tangled bodies, the tower fan humming in the corner of the room, because England decided to exercise its mandate of a two week summer, today topping the mercury at twenty degrees C. 

“Poch wanted to kill all of us,” Christian laughed, because the distance of the summer holidays took the sting out of the loss. He’d travelled abroad like the rest of the team did. Scattering for the holidays to leave everything behind, even did a couple charity trips for much needed perspective. 

Football could be all consuming if you let it, and dangerous too, especially if you found yourself on the wrong side of it. Feeling guilty at the thought, he searched for VIncent’s hand, and squeezed it, smiled when Vincent returned the pressure. 

“But anyway,” Christian shifted, using his other hand to tap the rewind icon on the screen. “This is pure Benitez, he’s defensive, with holding midfielders, and --” he continued, going over the plays he knew Vincent already knew, his fingers sketching out formations, especially with the wingers pushing opponents aside. 

Defend, build and attack. His team rigorously drilled, and buoyed by the scalp they got from Tottenham at the end of the season before last and would be confident coming into their first match after just being promoted to the PL at first time of asking. This in contrast to Pochettino, still stung by how everything ended. He made plans and counter plans, to the point where Vincent could have done the drills in his sleep. 

“If I’m allowed on the field,” Vincent said, and that’s when Christian realised he’d spoken aloud.

“You will,” Christian answered automatically, tilting his face to look up at Vincent’s. “It will be your year.”

Vincent smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His face too open at times, Christian thought, but wouldn’t have had him or this any other way. “You have to back yourself as they say over here, right?” 

“Right.”

***

“Seriously?”

“Hmm?” Christian answered, placing the carton of bottles of beer on the counter. His face flushed, eyes dreamy. He’d gone to the garden shed to get beer with Vincent -- and got a lot more besides, by the looks of things.

Thankfully, it was just both of them in the kitchen, with the rest of their assembled party in the living room.

“Chris--” Toby started, running his hand along the side of his head. Both standing in his kitchen, Christian putting the bottles of beer in the sink, which had enough ice and water packed in it to force down _The Titanic_. He took his time adjusting the bottles, making sure they didn’t clink or roll against each other to cause cracking or chipping. When it came to duties like this, Christian had a careful, easy way about him. He could never have been an order chef or the sort, because he was too languid, and insisted moving at his own pace, but when it came to tasks in the kitchen, he was thorough. 

“What are you doing?”

“Putting beers in the sink,” Christian answered in that calm, almost airy sort of voice he had. 

“Hah,” Toby said. Following a hunch, his index finger skimmed along the collar of Christian’s t-shirt, before dragging it down. The skin along his clavicle mottled and bruised from suction and pressure of teeth. The paleness of his torso making the red of mouth and yellow of bite marks stand out like a patterned flag against an open plain. 

The branding suggesting something passionate verging on the point of violence, the sort of lust that burned all common sense away. 

Given the half floating euphoria which surrounded him lately, Christian seemed to be lost in the thrall of it.

_Gott_

“I mean, this,” he said, arms spread, palms up, voice low. “With Janssen.” 

At the mention of his name, Christian moving from dreamy and lost to hyperalert and focused. His eyes flashed with annoyance, his head doing that thing, where you didn’t think he was seeing _anything_ only for him to see the minutest of spaces to slide a pass to another player. 

“We’re not involved,” Christian answered, voice low. “Isn’t that what you said, ‘don’t get involved’?”

“And you expect me not to believe--”

“I expect nothing.”

“Christian--” Toby reached out, touched his shoulder. When it came to whom he loved, he found patience, and drew deeply from its reserves. “You deserve--” he stopped, started again, taking another tack this time. “You know he’s going to leave.”

Christian didn’t say a word, eyes wide, his mouth shut, and Toby took that as an excuse to plead his case. “You know he’s turned down loans, that the gaffer is mad about it, and --” Toby hesitated. It wasn’t because he didn’t like Vincent, he liked him well enough- and not because he was one of the party attendees in the living room. 

Vincent always strove to be professional, put himself about in service to the team and always, always trying. 

At this level though, trying wasn’t good enough. 

“And.” Toby started. Stopped. Not wanting to go any further because Janssen didn’t deserve to be slagged off, but whatever this was with Christian made no sense. “You’ve put all this effort and,” he couldn’t avoid the truth of it. “ You’re going to get hurt. Chris--”

“I can’t -” Christian shook his head, his hand braced against the counter’s edge, his fingers gripping so tightly, his knuckles whitened. His hooded gaze focused on the beers in the sink, eyelashes almost resting on the tops of his cheeks. “I can’t speak about Vincent with you,” he answered at last, his voice too calm. “I won’t.”

“Okay,” Toby mentally and physically took a step back. “That’s fine.”

*** 

Toby had been right after all.

Truth be told, Christian knew Vincent had no choice but to leave. 

Pochettino’s attitude moving from muted bafflement to a bloody ruthlessness as he issued an ultimatum. 

“It’s either I leave, or play in the under 23s,” Vincent had said, lifting his gaze, his eyes maple syrup dark, sheened and glassy with emotion. The coffee in the mugs on the table between them now scentless and cold. “I haven’t played in _under anythings_ for a damned long time. I’m a full Dutch international, Christian.”

“Oh,” Christian had said, because when it came to Vincent, he responded better to calm rational questions instead of gushing sympathy. “Where will you go?”

Vincent shrugged, shrinking into his oversized hoodie. “Any club that will take me.”

Christian got up, taking their coffee mugs away, carried them to the sink, pouring the rest of the coffee down the drain. Looked at the garden outside, flowers in bloom, the grass green, the sky a patch of blue. Blinking the view away, he walked over to Vincent’s chair, and hugged him from behind. His lips pressed against his hair, his arms around his shoulders, and chest. Vincent’s fingers digging into his forearms, his breathing shaky and harsh in the quiet of the kitchen. Their bodies swayed to and fro as if in the grip of a gentle breeze. 

Neither of them said anything for a long time.

***

“Ah, _Gott_ ,” Jan groaned as the doorbell rang. He’d landed on one of Toby’s properties where Toby screamed “RENT!” with bloodthirsty triumph. His fists punching the air.

Jan rested his forehead against the table, muttered,“ _Again_.” 

Before Toby could get into his howl of triumph, he pushed himself away from the Monopoly game in progress. “That might be Eden,” he explained, “Kevin’s in London for the day, and he said that they may or may not pass by, what with traffic around Kensington. Coming this way might be a bit too much of an ask.”

“He can take my place,” Jan muttered darkly at Mousa. “If I were a football team, I’d be relegated.”

“More like West Brom, I think.” Mousa rubbed at the nape of his neck as he grabbed the dice. “I-”

Toby left them to it, peering through the peephole and-- that wasn’t Eden. 

He opened the door, half shocked to find Christian standing on the doorstep, his form delineated by the light of the setting sun. His eyes wide, his features blankly impassive, if you didn’t know where to look. Like the twitch of the muscle in his jaw, or his lips pressed into a tight line. 

“Christian.”

“I’m sorry, I should have rang before I dropped by.”

“Chris-”

“I mean, I,” Christian rushed on, “I just jumped in my car and drove, and I didn’t know where else to go and I-” he stopped. 

They gaped at each other in horrified silence, because Christian didn’t babble. He wasn’t one to _chunder_. On a breath, he took a step back from Toby. Then another, as if he’d turn tail and make a beeline to his car. 

“I’ll let you go,” he finished, his expression completely bleak. 

Toby pushed the door slightly wider, and wordlessly spread his arms. Christian walked into them, his body shuddering at the end of a long sigh.

***

“Nah, _mijn vriend_ ,” Mousa replied, his voice on the phone a croon of apology, “something has come up. We can’t leave now.”

A laugh, a joke, as Mousa soothed the ruffled feathers of Eden and Kevin over speaker phone. They were being jilted for reasons that Mousa didn’t explain, and Christian couldn’t blame them for being angry. “Fine, _tosser_ ,” Kevin answered, half mollified, now convinced that the situation couldn’t be helped. “Next time, then.”

The activity continued around Christian, Jan smoothing a throw around his shoulders as if he were a _grootmoeder_ suffering from ague, pressing a shot glass of _Elixir d'Anvers_ in his palms for stomach upset and chill. 

It had been five days, three hours and twenty seven minutes since Vincent left for Fenerbahce. 

He’d dropped by Jan’s house on the night of Vincent’s departure, seeing Toby and Mousa then, but not socially since. Training had been an excuse and a relief. One eye on the matches in the domestic league and the other eye on the upcoming World Cup matches. A short call to his NT coach to make it clear he was available for international call ups and just --- 

He _had_ been fine, until tonight, when the silence in his house became too much, the memories too overwhelming. He jumped into his car, drove around aimlessly, caught up in the snarls of London traffic before he ended up here.

“Do you need anything?” Mousa asked, his palm on Christian’s knee. “A bite to eat? A...new... _puzzle_?”

Christian shook his head, glad for the comforting noises when the trio resumed their game, the disgusted groans as Toby bankrupted them Monopoly style. 

Again. 

“You shark,” Jan shook his head. “I should just leave before you have designs on my _actual home_.”

“Me too,” Mousa pouted, drumming his fingers on the surface of the table.

“I’d put you up - in my _new_ homes,” Toby laughed. 

Jan flicked a two fingered salute, showing Toby what he thought about that hypothetical offer, as he busied himself into putting the Monopoly set away.

***

“You were right, congratulations.” Christian said later.

Mousa and Jan hadn’t left after all. They were across the room playing a bitterly contested game of Uno, if Mousa’s bad tempered mutterings were anything to go by, in contrast to Jan’s manic cackle. 

Toby and Christian seated on the sofa, saying nothing after Christian’s pointed comment. 

With a start, he remembered the last time he sat here. It had been shortly after they’d been knocked out of Champions’ League, and Vincent had held him close. Not offering comfort - you’d be mad to turn to a Dutchman for that - but support. 

Back when they’d been friends, and nothing more. Then. 

“I wish I had been wrong.”

Christian shrugged his shoulders, looked ahead and past the TV, through the window to the view outside. 

Outside, sunset edging to twilight. 

September railed against the longer evenings and the death of the light with a noble effort; the heart of the day still torn by the fist of the night in the end, splatters of blush pink and violet tangled with orange. By the time November came, the sky all violet shrouded, edged with fog, it brought the weather that felt like a boot at your throat, a sodden cloak that dragged you down. 

He was now in the grip of November, two months sooner than he thought he’d be. 

“It’s fine,” Christian remembered he had a drink in his hand, took a cautious sip. 

Blinked once, as the taste- intensely warming with a herbed medicinal flavour- hit his senses. Raised the glass to his mouth to take another one, decided against it before placing it on the low coffee table in front of him. 

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, the pressure in front of his forehead and above his nose tightening like a band. Christian exhaled, his breath trembling at the edges. Now too weak to do resist Toby’s one armed hug, as he allowed himself to be pulled in. Eyes still dry, his spirit wounded and not knowing why. 

“It isn’t.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” Christian replied finally, his voice ragged at the edges. Knowing these things were like a mantra; if you said the words often enough, they might be true. 

“It really does,” Toby said at last, exposing Christian’s thought for the lie it was; the understanding in his voice making Christian’s eyes prickle and his lower lip wobble. “Because he matters to you.”

Fin

**Author's Note:**

>   * Hey, Itsadrizzit! Happy Christmas, lovely! Hope you're having a good holiday and that this makes it better!
>   * Will post thanks and notes later. On a dodgy hotel internet now 
>   * ETA Jan 04 2018: Thank you so much to RsCreighton (the link to her reading of this fic is below) for going above and beyond the call of duty to record this fic as a favour for me (as a gift for @Itsadrizzit) as an #IPTE2017 extra for New Year's. Please go and listen and leave her love on the fluency of her reading and the ability to interpret each situation as it comes
>   * ETA 2: Jan 04 2018: Hey @Itsadrizzit, I do remember you saying that you prefer podfic to reading. Hopefully there's space in your mp3 files for this one! Happy New Year! 
> 


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Little Help From My Friends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13219551) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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